Light-hearted conversation with callers from all over about new words, old sayings, slang, family ex
[This episode first aired February 7, 2009.] Are fairy tales too scary for children? A survey of pa
Why do we say someone is 'on the wagon' when they abstain from drinking alcohol? -- Get your langu
[This episode first aired January 24, 2009.] President Barack Obama hopes to boost the economy by p
Welcome to another minicast from A Way with Words. Iâm Grant Barrett. [Music] Hip-hop is high art.
Martha muses about the language of falconry, and in the process, reveals the origins of several word
Humorist Roy Blount Jr. sits down with Grant for a conversation about the controversy over writers'
This week, we're going through the e-mail bag. Here's a savory, sensuous one. It's from Stacey in Bo
What's a 'Hobson's Choice'? If you're facing a Hobson's choice, you don't really have much to choos
What The Cluck, Part 2 What does the expression egg on have to do with chickens? Nothing, actually.
This week, we received an email from Randy in San Diego. Randy writes: 'I recently got myself three
Recently The New Yorker magazine ran a profile of the writer David Foster Wallace, who died last yea
Martha explains how experiments with dead frogs and live wires led to the invention of the battery,
[Portions of this episode were first broadcast November 1, 2008.] Apple core, Baltimore! Ever play
Time for another linguistic mystery. Where would you be if you decided to go twacking around duckis
Time for another linguistic mystery. In what part of the country would you be likely to hear older f
Time to solve another linguistic mystery. You're in a restaurant. You overhear a conversation at th
Where in the world would you be likely to find sculch in your dooryard, or ask for just a dite of cr
Obamamania, Obamabot, Obamathon, Obamamentum— the list of variations on the name “Obama” goes on and
Listen: Can you guess what this is? 'Huup huup huup . . . huup huup huup . . . huup huup huup.' No
We're continuing our look at some of the words of the year of 2008. Last week we talked about words
